Despite 2 Straight Golds, They`ve Become `Forgotten Team`

BARCELONA, SPAIN — While basketball`s Dream Team descended upon the Olympic Games in full

(if not complete) splendor Saturday, the U.S. men`s volleyball team circled in a bus looking for a practice site that wasn`t on the official map.

Volleyball`s press officer and the press officers from 11 other sports were taken off their jobs to assist with basketball, which required a press officer for each player.

At the final U.S. men`s volleyball practice before Sunday afternoon`s opening game against Japan, there was one reporter.

While the basketball team creates Olympic hysteria, the volleyball team is trying to make Olympic history with a third gold medal in a row. Yet neither the bus driver nor the police escort could find the remote practice gym, so the workout scheduled for 8 a.m. actually started at 9 a.m.

It`s not that volleyball is in the dark ages of its existence. Team veteran Steve Timmons, 33, made $1 million last year playing in Italy. So did Karch Kiraly, the 1988 Olympics most valuable player, who declined a third berth so he could play pro volleyball on the beach.

Without Kiraly, the U.S. team still has a chance to win it all, but even with Kiraly, it wouldn`t be easy.

``The rest of the world has caught up,`` Timmons said. ``There are probably four or five teams that could win it, and not too many people would be surprised. So we`ve got our work cut out if we`re going to make history.`` The U.S. team has not lost to Japan in World League play this season.

``But you can throw that out the window because this is the Olympics,``

Timmons said.

Although Japan is not one of the six best teams, the presence of a 6-foot-11-inch middle blocker indicates how the sport is evolving around the world.

``In Italy, it`s huge,`` Timmons said. ``In Brazil and Japan, it`s big. The Soviets (the Unified Team) seem to always get the good athletes to play. Holland has the biggest team in the Olympics. So better athletes are coming to the sport.``

Holland is coached by Arie Selinger, the former U.S. Olympic women`s coach. Cuba, absent in 1984 and 1988, has the most potent offensive team in the Games.

``The Cubans are real good at the net jumping and hitting and not so good at playing defense or ball control,`` Timmons said.

Invented in Massachusetts in 1895 as a ``less strenuous`` alternative to the recently invented basketball, volleyball was not an Olympic sport until 1964 and was not dominated by the United States until the 1980s, when the country got serious enough to offer year-around training. But the dominance is waning, said Timmons, because other countries watched closely and learned. Undoubtedly, the same phenomenon eventually will occur in basketball.

It was the United States that developed two-man passing, hitting out of the back row and the specialization of players at certain positions.

``We came out with these systems in `84 and developed them through `88,`` Timmons said. ``By `88, most of the teams were doing what we were doing, but I don`t think they had the players or the amount of time needed to perfect it. So they looked like us, but they didn`t quite play to the same level. Now, I think they look like us and play like us.``

Timmons, Jeff Stork and Bob Ctvrtlik are Olympic veterans who recently returned to the U.S. team after playing for two years in Italy, where volleyball is more than a weak sister to basketball.

``I compare it to the NBA on a smaller scale in Italy,`` Timmons said.

``There are matches on TV every week, they sell out the arenas and there are contract disputes. We draw about the same as Italian basketball, and the teams spend about as much.``

Timmons will not play to see the day when television clamors for a U.S. volleyball Dream Team, but he may live to see it in his old age.

``I`ve seen when we were playing with 200 people in the stands to where we draw 12,000 and are mentioned in Sports Illustrated as a sport, so the credibility has grown,`` Timmons said.

The team that starts Sunday against Japan will have only one new face from the 1988 Olympic starters. He is Bryan Ivie, 1990-91 college player of the year at Southern Cal.

``He has taken my spot more than he`s taken Karch`s,`` Timmons said.

``Karch is more of a ball-control, defensive, all-around player. Bryan is kind of a big hitter.``

As a team, the United States isn`t sure of its potential.

``When it counts, we`ll see what happens,`` Timmons said. ``We`ve played some in the World League and tried a lot of different lineups and different things.``

A longtime friend of Kiraly`s, Timmons is baffled somewhat by his absence.

``I think he`s going to have second thoughts,`` Timmons said. ``I would think he would because he`s been a big part of this team. He`s going to see us out there, and I would think he would miss it. It`s the ultimate game for volleyball, the Olympics, and the ultimate challenge for a volleyball player, and he`s not going to be a part of it.``